


Room For Improvement

by bonafake



Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: Character Study, Gen, Implied/Referenced Underage Drinking, Jack Zimmermann's Overdose, Parental Expectations
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-09
Updated: 2016-12-09
Packaged: 2018-09-07 11:33:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,353
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8799298
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bonafake/pseuds/bonafake
Summary: When Jack is sixteen, he starts playing in the Q, Rimouski, obviously.His father hadn’t wanted him to, had said that he worked too hard for something that should be easy, but his father never got it. His father hadn’t had to work like Jack did. His father loved the ice like Jack did, but the ice loved Bob back, and Jack has to work for it.He starts playing anyways. It might be the hardest thing he's ever done. or,check, please with a boy who wasn't quite a hockey god.





	

**Author's Note:**

> FEELINGS. so many feelings about jlz and everything after. obviously, lots of people have different experiences with anxiety medication; this is definitely not meant to represent everyone's relationship with medication, prescription or not.
> 
> notes: past kent/jack, minor bitty/jack, people doing bad stuff for good reasons, caring deeply, anxiety medicine abuse, implied underage drinking, non-explicit sexual relations, broom closet makeouts, eventual self-acceptance, mentioned father issues, working hard to get where you want to be.

What people don’t really get is that Jack’s always had to work.

He’s never been the fastest skater or had the softest hands or the hardest slapshot. He’s never been gifted with the ability to just make a shot from the blueline without practice. He’s never known exactly where his opponent is going to send the puck, where he’s going to shoot the goal, until he’s watched hours worth of tape and mapped out all their plays. He’s never won a game that he didn’t fight for.

The thing, though, is that Jack loves the ice.

That makes almost everything worth it.

 —

When Jack is sixteen, he starts playing in the Q, Rimouski, obviously.

His father hadn’t wanted him to, had said that he worked too hard for something that should be easy, but his father never got it. His father hadn’t had to work like Jack did. His father loved the ice like Jack did, but the ice loved Bob back, and Jack has to work for it.

He starts playing anyways. It might be he hardest thing he’s ever done.

Jack puts in the extra hours after practice and sucks it up, because that’s what good hockey players do; they work hard and they do as good as they can, because at the end of the day your team might be shitty and your goalkeeper might be half-asleep, but at least you did your best. His dad hadn’t stopped fighting after getting one cup—no, he’d gone out and got another. The media chalks up his obsession—yeah, they call it _obsession_ —to wanting to be as good his dad, which, no. He just wants to be as good as _he_ can be.

He’s a center on a Quebec major junior team in the middle of Canada and the son of Hockey Wunderkind Bad Bob Zimmerman; the expectations might be really fucking high, but he’s pretty sure he can be really fucking _good_ if he works for it.

—

At Rimouski, Jack centers Kent Parson.

It almost goes without saying that he loves the ice almost as much as Jack does.

Parse is good; the effortless, beautiful kind of good Jack’s always been wary of, the kind of good where his shots find the back of the net nine times out of ten, the kind of good where he wins faceoffs without any kind of real _fight_ , the kind of good where he’s got a high hockey IQ that lets him know what plays he needs to make on the spot.

Jack wants to be jealous.

Jack wants to kiss Parse’s mouth.

 —

He’s better with Parse.

Passes connect almost effortlessly and Jack stops those eight hour extra practices on the weekends and hour long runs in the mornings; the team is the closest they’ve been to making the playoffs they have been for a while; scouts are looking at _both_ of them, and for the first time, making the show isn’t as distant as it had been last year in the kids’ league. They win so many games and they share a room on roadies and talk numbers, stats, plays, late into the night. Jack tries not to let it mean anything.

When they win the Memorial Cup for the first time, Jack’s dad comes over and gathers him in a half hug. “Good job.”

It’s not quite taking back what he said about the Jack and Q, but—it’s close.

—

Parse kisses him at the CHL awards. It’s slightly off, placed on the corner of Jack’s chapped lips. He ducks down afterwards, looking slightly bashful. “Sorry,” is what he says.

Jack stares down at him. “No, it’s—uh, fine.”

They end up sneaking out after the awards ceremony, evading NHL scouts and concerned, elated parents, and make out, fumbling around clumsily in a broom closet for a half an hour. Two top skaters really shouldn’t be so prone to tripping over buckets of cleaning solution. Jack’s lips are kiss-swollen after, and Kent’s hair is kind of a mess.

He’s never done something so _easy._

It’s scary for a lot of reasons.

 —

He gets a prescription for anxiety medication before he returns to play in the Q for the second year. He’s barely seventeen, and when he returns to Rimouski, hungry for the Memorial Cup, he drinks sometimes and kisses Kent others. It works. It’s easy, the way he’s doing it, pop a pill or take a few shots or both whenever he feels the hard edge of _pressure NHL boyfriend hockey dad pressure_ , and they win the Memorial Cup again.

With results like that, what could be wrong?

—

The draft is in about a month.

He knows it, obviously. Kent knows it. Jack has the date circled in bright red ink on his calendar, exactly nine days from Kent’s birthday. It’s weighing heavy on them, but the season’s over, they won the cup again, and both of them have spent the summer after the playoffs discovering the wonders of sleepy summer sex.

The first time they did it, it was a disaster: they were in Jack’s childhood bedroom with a Sidney Crosby poster hanging over them, as though he was watching and disapproving of their orgasms, somehow managing to besmirch the good name of Canada with a single kiss. Kent didn’t know what he was doing, and Jack knew less, and the bed was too tiny for two almost-professional hockey players. In the end they gave up and watched highlights from the Habs game.

“Next time, we’ll be better,” Kent had promised. It was the same thing he said after every game they lost, too.

But it was accurate. The next time they were.Kent and Jack are definitely proficient at fucking now; Kent has figured out what he’s doing and Jack knows how not to freak out while they’re in the middle. Now they’re lying on Jack’s bed, again, Crosby still above them, but this time, they’re fucked out and happy, sated.

Yeah, they’re good.

—

Jack doesn't know when having sex with Kent stopped being a good escape.

All he knows is that it _isn't_.

They’ve stopped fucking; it’s a week before the draft and the the last time they tried Kent couldn't get it up because he was so stressed, and they didn't talk for a few days after that. He’s terrified and almost paralyzed, and his mind is always, always buzzing underneath his skin. Jack hates it, hates the fact that he can't stop _thinking_. So instead of getting lost in Kent, his mouth, his _dick_ , he gets lost in NHL draft stats and anxiety meds. It's working.

It’s _easy_.

But he’s pretty sure it’s not good.

—

Jack watches the draft from the hospital a couple of hours after his stomach has been pumped and the tabloids got ahold of the information.

Kent goes first.

—

People have never said that Jack Zimmermann doesn't put in the effort.

But the thing is, it’s been _enough_ , before.

Now, in rehab, his best isn't enough. He needs to say more, do more, breathe deeper, and what he’s got it isn't _enough_. It’s hard, is what it is. It’s been so long since anything was really _hard,_  he’s almost forgotten what it felt like. Rehab feels like climbing up a hill and sliding back down and then being forced to climb back up. He’s not _good_ at it, but neither is anyone else.

—

His mother used to say, “Be your best, and things will get better.”

Jack isn't sure that’s true anymore.

—

He goes to Samwell.

 It’s—different, is what he’s going with. He’s got friends there, isn’t as alone or as isolated as he’d been in the Q with just Kent and no one else. He hadn’t even realized that he _needed_ any other people. He’s got Shitty, who’s right wing and not very good, but earnest and kind and sort of a stoner, and that’s fine. Being friends with him is hard, and opening up is even harder, but Shitty is so open and so good, it’s difficult _not_ to. Shitty doesn't ask him why he doesn't drink and accepts every night filled with Jack’s awkward wonderings about his sexual orientation. Shitty smacks away Sports Illustrated magazines when they reference hockey’s prodigal son or Bad Bob Zimmermann. Shitty is good for him, is what he’s saying.

Jack plays hockey and puts in the work; his numbers aren't as good as the years he won the Memorial Cup, but that’s to be expected. He had Kent those years.

Samwell is good for him too, he decides. He learns how to work hard all over again. Jack wakes up early to go running and falls asleep late thinking of plays. It works, and it’s hard, starting over, but he’s going to be better, he thinks. Yeah, definitely better.

—

Kent calls him almost every day, leaving long, lengthy voicemails that detail _everything,_  until every day turns into every week, and every week turns into every other week, and every other week turns into monthly, and monthly turns into not at all.

Jack deletes the voicemails without listening to them and never picks up the phone.

It’s easy, to leave him behind like that.

—

The thing is, people say that Jack Zimmermann is good at hockey, gifted, practically, but they've never seen how hard he works to make it look like that.

—

Eric Bittle comes to Samwell when Jack is a junior.

Jack has a problem with that.

 

He’s a _figure skater._  He’s scared of _checking._  He’s effortlessly _good_. It’s obnoxious, how good he is, even without trying too much. That’s the worst part about Bittle, Jack muses. He doesn’t try, and he doesn’t care. The thing is, other people aren’t that different about the overdose—they don’t take him seriously, discount every single good thing he’s ever done on the ice in exchange for shoddy theories about him and Kent, which, while sometimes true, are annoying, and they act like he’s a useless cocaine addict, which, no.

He hates it.

—

Jack hears from Shitty that Bittle doesn’t even know about his dad. Which implies he also doesn’t know about the overdose. Which implies that his issue with checking really _is_ an issue.

Which—changes things, obviously.

—

Jack puts in the work.

This time, though, he puts in the work with someone else. Bittle’s good, but he’s not there yet. They have checking clinics at four in the morning, skating at Faber while the sun comes up, an hour before he usually goes on runs, and Bittle gets better at handling physicality, and Jack starts thinking about what his mother used to say again—because it’s working, for him and Bittle both.

Hockey isa team sport, after all.

—

They do pretty well in the playoffs this year.

It’s not enough.

—

He gets voted captain again.

This time, he’s not sure if it’s enough or not.

—

Jack and Bittle take the same morning class during his senior year. They have to bake and Bitty practically covers him in flour and later, he’s pretty sure he hears him bumping around in his room and trying and failing to be quiet. He thinks that’s when he knows. After they’re done, he goes back up to his room and dials Kent’s number, the new one that he’d left with Jack after the Kegster, and he doesn’t press call.

No, instead, his finger hovers over the button for twenty minutes and then he deletes it and sets his phone down.

Jack watches a World War II documentary on his laptop instead of talking about his feelings.

It’s easy, that way.

—

He graduates in spring and it’s hard. It’s hard to see his team and know that he’s not going to be one of them next year. It’s hard to look at Coach Hall and Murray and know that he didn't win them the playoffs. It’s hard. The hardest part of all is saying goodbye.

Jack’s father tells him to really say goodbye.

He does it, in the end.

Choosing to run back up to the Haus to kiss Eric Bittle might be the hardest thing he’s ever done in his life, but it’s so, so, fucking worth it.

—

The NHL is hard. He has crazy long hours and so much time away from home, Bitty, and Samwell, but now everyone else has to work just as hard as he does. It’s good, distracts him from the fact that he only gets to see his boyfriend every two weeks.

He loves the ice, and he works hard enough so that it looks like the ice loves him back.

—

They come out to their friends and Bitty's hands are shaking.

Later Jack tell him that what’s good is never easy. They’re going to be okay.

—

He’s been thinking about Kent a lot, recently.

Not in a romantic way—no, he has Bitty, but in a friend way. He remembers that they were best friends, before anything else, and he kind of misses that. He remembers that talking to Kent for the first time was hard, and he remembers everything that he’s learned in the past five years or so.

Hard work pays off, and he should probably put it in.

—

Jack dials Kent’s number one day at Bitty's suggestion. “Hi, Kenny,” he says after Kent picks up, and waits.

“Zimms? Is—is that you? Jesus _shit,_  you didn't—”

Kent hangs up without finishing his own sentence.

 Jack calls him back, with shaking hands and a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach. It takes him two tries to properly press the dial button. Rejection always stings, but he knows that he has to keep trying. This is _hard._  He think it’ll be worth it.

—

He calls Bitty afterwards, lying back down on his bed and feeling a soft sense of satisfaction. “Hi, honey!” says Bitty, who picks up on the first ring. “Did you call him?”

“Yeah, I did. It was—hard, but. Yeah, I did it.”

"I’m so proud of you,” Bitty responds, and Jack—he thinks he gets it now. “I love you.”

Yeah, he definitely does.

  
  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> hmu on [tumblr](http://bonafake.tumblr.com)! reviews are my lifeblood!


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